Wework India plans to raise $200 mn by end of this year
NEW DELHI: Co-working major Wework India, owned by realty firm Embassy Group, will raise $200 million (around ₹1,400 crore) by December to expand business, and expects to be profitable at the entity level in one year, a top company official said.
Asserting that there would be no impact on the Indian operation due to deferment of public issue of Us-based Wework, India business head Karan Virwani said the company has already invested ₹1,300 crore, including ₹1,000 crore as equity, in this business and will continue to infuse more for growth.
“There is lot of speculation about Wework India business. We still believe in Wework brand. India business is really growing well. Embassy Group is bullish about the co-working sector and we continue to expand,” Wework India CWEO Karan Virwani told Press Trust of India in an interview.
Wework India has 26 operational co-working centres with 46,000 seating capacity. It has nine centres in Bengaluru, 10 in Mumbai, six in Gurugram and one in Pune where seats are available in range of ₹5,000-40,000 per desk per month.
“We are targeting to reach 100,000 desks/seats by end of the next year. In order to fund this expansion plan, we plan to raise $200 million by end of this year from foreign and domestic investors,” he said.
Wework India will soon enter Noida and Hyderabad markets. It has taken on lease over 300,000 sq. ft office space to open three co-working centres comprising nearly 3,900 seats in Noida. The company is leasing more office spaces to expand operation.
Virwani said the company has achieved profitability at centre level and expects to earn profit at the entity level over the next 12 months.
Wework India is an independent entity with the right to execute its business in India and it pays a management fee to the US firm.last week, Embassy Group said there would be no impact on the Indian operation due to deferment of initial public offering of Us-based Wework’s parent —The We Company. BENGALURU: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Ltd reported a lower-than-expected September quarter profit on Thursday, as India’s number one information technology (IT) services exporter battled sluggish spending by financial clients.
TCS, a part of salt-to-software conglomerate Tata group, heavily relies on banking clients in the West for revenue like its peers in the $180-billion IT services sector.
However, an escalating trade war between the US and China, as well as Britain’s likely chaotic exit from the European Union have throttled global economic growth and many companies are cutting costs to cope with the slowdown.
TCS’ net profit rose 1.8% to ₹8,042 crore ($1.13 billion) in the three months ended September 30 from a year ago, but missed the average analyst estimate of ₹8,255 crore, according to Refinitiv data.
Operating margins dropped to 24% from 26.5%.
The company—whose clients include the Netherlands-based ABN Amro Bank, Citigroup UK and Norway’s Dnb—said revenue in its key banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) segment rose only 5.3% to ₹15,427 crore. Total revenue rose 5.8% to ₹38,977 crore.
TCS also said its Board has declared a second interim dividend of ₹5 and a special dividend of ₹40 per equity share of ₹1 each of the company. “We ended the quarter with steady growth despite increased volatility in the financial services and retail verticals. We remain confident as the medium and longer term demand for our services continues to be very strong, as evidenced by our Q2 order book— the highest in the last six quarters,” TCS chief executive and managing director Rajesh Gopinathan said.
Shares of the company ended down 0.77%.